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Friday, March 28, 2014

Endiyan's PIAS Scarab

You've seen the PIAS Scarab frame built in many possible ways, apart from other setups that can be found rolling around the streets (or lack thereof) of cities in Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand to name a few. This one, owned by Endiyan Rakhmanda, is different in its kind of way: not only it was set up in a different way than others, it's also become the only Scarab to spend its life in Europe. Germany, to be exact.

The initial plan was to have the 51cm-sized frame shipped to Germany, where Endiyan would bought the parts and have it built there. But then the plan was scrapped and instead we're ended up shipping a box with full-built bike nested inside.

The brief was simple and sounds typical: build a bike that can be used on almost every terrain, especially during winter. Also we need to use reasonably-priced parts that can bring balance between budget and performance. We obliged by putting almost-complete set of Shimano 105 groupset, apart from the 12-30T Tiagra cassette to provide better low gearing, KMC X10 chain that we proved of having better rust resistance than their Shimano counterparts, Tektro Lyra disc brakes, and the wheels.

The wheels is kind of mysterious: we've got this unlabeled set of hubs from our local supplier for a fair price. Out of curiosity, as soon as we lay our hands on them, we stripped it to see what's inside... and surprisingly, the hubset are loaded with many good features such as Enduro stainless bearing and alternating ratcheting pawls. Confident of this, we get another pair and laced it to a pair of Velocity Aerohead rims, and at 1780 grams, we ended up having one of the lightest 700c disc-ready wheels we've ever built. To match the unlabeled hubs, we strip the stickers out of those rims as well.

The wheels are then shod with Schwalbe CX Pro cyclocross tires to ensure they will still rolls confidently even in the muck or snow. A bit different from any cyclocross setup that we've built before, a set of Civia fenders were then fitted to keep road slush out of bay.